Celebrating 65 Years of Arcadian Days

May Green and her friend, Paul Cushnan and son, Eamon Green

Throughout the world, there is not many 101 year old women overseeing their family business, however Athlone’s May Green has been doing that since she first built the Cova shop, sixty-five years ago this November.  The shop is still going strong, and is run full time, by May’s son, Eamon and his wife Nancy.

Family and friends of May Green piled into her house in Arcadia to celebrate the opening of the Cova shop.  The Cova shop opened for business in November 1948, just three years after World War 2 ended.

May's nephew, Paddy Egan and his wife Margaret

 
 May had already gained shop experience working in her cousin’s shop and newsagents in Dublin in the early 1930s.  Following her plan for the building of a shop in Arcadia, in 1948, her mother gave May a site on the edge of the family’s farm in Arcadia, facing the old Ballymahon Road.  On that site, she built the Cova shop.
She was reading a religious book at the time, and it gave her the idea to name the shop after the Cova in Fatima.
May had an eventful life up to that point, and witnessed the Black and Tans in Athlone, and after she married and went to live in London, she survived many bombing raids in the 1940s blitz.

Three generations of Green women, Carol, Nancy and May

Her maiden name was May Kilroy, and in her family there were five brothers and three sisters, and she and her sister, Alice are the only surviving members.  
May has been a widow since 1990, when her husband, Jack Green died.  May has two sons, Desmond and Eamon.